


Something from Nothing

by tatooedlaura



Series: Life, Part 3 [10]
Category: The X-Files
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-05
Updated: 2018-02-05
Packaged: 2019-03-14 08:12:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,964
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13585953
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tatooedlaura/pseuds/tatooedlaura
Summary: Mulder, unsettled at her settled-in paranoia stated as fact, shifted her slightly so her elbows weren’t digging into his thighs at such a terribly painful angle and he could lean more comfortably back on the arm of the couch, “I think you have officially become more paranoid than me and that’s saying something.”Jaw set in determination, she tucked the blankets around them tighter, the draft moving through the apartment making her colder by the minute, his warm chest against her back the only thing keeping her from piling on another layer, “I’ll take it as a compliment.” Hands cupping his knees, head twisting to look up at him, “we are this kid’s best hope and I’m not going to let this one down.”





	Something from Nothing

The Nyquil held him until around 4am, when he began looking for her in his half-dazed stupor of sleep, arms roaming, running into cold sheets and empty pillow. Stumbling from the bed, eyes stuck together, he wandered, shivering, out to the living room, following phantom Scully trail. Finding her in the dark, sitting in the overstuffed chair by the window, he wondered for half a second if she was asleep but her head turn towards the sound of him kicking the couch leg told him otherwise, “hi.”

“Hi. What are you doing awake?”

“I got lonely. Why are you out here?” Turning the chair with her in it so she faced him as he sat down on the coffee table, he finally noticed the exhausted, dull blue eyes, the puffy, red-rimmed lids, and reaching over to grip her knee, “you haven’t slept yet, have you?”

Head still resting on the wing of the chair, she shook a ‘no’ at him, “I’ve had a little on my mind.”

“I haven’t. You should really try that liquid green nightmare. I don’t remember dreaming a damn thing but it leaves a wicked whiskey and roadkill aftertaste.” Wiggling forward as much as he could, he rubbed her shoulders, “is it the baby or the chip in my neck that’s bothering you most?”

The look she shot at him should have knocked him off the table and onto his ass but he held steady, didn’t blink, “you know about the chip?”

Nodding, “I set off the metal detectors at the airport. I told them I had been shot on duty years ago and Skinner had already gone through the line so he didn’t hear.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Why didn’t you tell me when you found it, ‘cause I was a little busy having a meltdown that you were pregnant and I’d almost left you behind to frolic the universe on the mother ship.”

“I was busy panicking that you nearly left me, elated you came home, scared sick I was pregnant, freaking out about your ‘meltdown’ and I was not about to add another layer of ‘you’re not going to believe this shit’ on top of everything else.”

“Then what are we arguing about?” Leaning forward to catch her lips in a kiss, “and I will never forget you actually said ‘freaking out’.”

Nowhere near ready to joke about anything, “I saw it in the tub last night. Why would they do that to you?”

“They prefer us a matching set, I guess.” Reaching over to pull an afghan across his shoulders, teeth chattering in the chill, “will you come back to bed with me so we can talk and you can keep my feet warm at the same time?”

Instead of answering, she held his gaze for an infinite amount of time, pupils wide in the dark. Finally, he moved his hand to hers, waiting until she took it, pulling her up next to him, holding her fingers while they walked the green glow of the hallway back to bed.

Settled, cocooned in comforter, blankets, knit and wool, “I’m going to put the chip discussion on hold until sometime tomorrow, maybe, or never, but since I woke up, I’ve come up with a theory about our tiny Earthling. Would you like to hear it?”

“How did you form an idea in two minutes when I can’t even slow my brain enough to remember how to make toast?”

“I’ve had a little sleep which trumps your ‘I’ve been up for three days’ and besides, my mind apparently processes a lot of shit coming down from a Nyquil high. Who knew.” Finding her hand under the covers, twining fingers and brushing knuckles, “my theory is now fully formed, I just have a few timeline questions first.”

Scully, her head half buried in pillow, nose nearly touching his, “I can’t promise anything. Remember, I can’t make toast.”

“You found out you were infertile about two years ago and you had the tests after that, right?” Seeing her nod, he continued, “then you went to Africa and touched the ship, which you stated brings things back to life, heals things … do you see where I’m going with this?”

She had a vague idea but her brain was mostly still crying for sleep. She shrugged her confusion and he moved on.

“You weren’t tested again before we started our IVF, correct? You just went on what you were told two years ago, which should have been correct.”

Now she stopped him, tired mind still managing to remember basic anatomy and biological science, “regardless, the human body cannot just make more eggs. What we are born with is what we have. They were all taken out and I was left with nothing. None, Mulder … a big fat zero.”

Her eyes slipped shut, desperate to sleep, desperate not to talk about this anymore for the moment. Mulder, however, being Mulder, rubbed his nose over hers, lips barely brushing as he continued, “we both know there is a very good chance those assholes who took you left one or two eggs behind or maybe that ship kicked your body into high gear and did some weird alien fuckery to you and managed to get your body to make more eggs. I’m not going to question that. I just know that by how far long you are, we made this small human being on your mother’s back porch, hammock-style, on that last really warm Thursday we had. There was Cool Whip on chocolate pie and you ate the Cool Whip and left me the pie and what was possibly the best meatloaf I’ve ever eaten and collared greens that you ate for me because I will never eat anything named collard green. We were very much alone and very much aware and very much not artificially inseminated.”

Hoping she was still listening, “this is our baby, Scully, and I’d change my mind about the existence of your God before I change my mind about that.

Her head had dried out two hours ago but her heart ached like she could cry for another three days, “tell me more.”

“You were only in Oregon a few days ago and this kid wouldn’t be the size you’re telling me if it had just happened. I went into that ship voluntarily and you got kicked back out; Skinner couldn’t get in at all. They only allowed previous abductees through and it didn’t want you. You were already pregnant and from my guess, not useful to them anymore. We made this kid the old-fashioned way and I’m going to scream it from the rooftops just as soon as I take a nap and you get some sleep.”

And he let this idea stew there, in the deep recesses of gray matter, while he waited, memorizing fathomless blue, bloodshot red and flecks of gold.

It was a tiny inhale, expansion and contraction of chest that made him hold his own breath before the softest whisper reached his ear, her lips barely moving, “you think this baby is truly ours?”

“I think this baby is truly ours.”

She kissed him hard, running into his mouth in desperate belief, putting all her faith in a theory that shouldn’t and couldn’t exist in her universe as she’d known it ten minutes earlier, “I don’t know what to do.”

“Trust me.” As he haphazardly and messily rolled her over, he snuggled up close behind, hand on her belly, lips on her neck, “and go to sleep. I’ll be here when you wake up.”

&&&&&&&&&

It was a restless morning for her, legs moving, turning, rolling, occasional twitching spasms giving Mulder inevitable future bruises. At times, however, the rains grew heavy against the window and over the roof, lulling her to stillness with the comfort of white noise. Mulder watched her lying on her back, eyes fluttering, long eyelashes brushing against alabaster cheeks, wondering if staying was worth it … they could go, run far, live quietly on the ocean, live secretly in the mountains, live safely on their own island.

He could protect his family better there than he could in a two-bedroom walkup in Georgetown.

As he began drifting towards a 10-hour nap, he wondered how in the world he could take the entire family with them.

Hunger drove him from bed eventually, the light through the blinds a diffused dark grey color, time determination only possibly by first, then second glance at the clock on the microwave. It said 2:11 but he had to stop and wonder if that was am or pm, then, realizing it didn’t really matter to his stomach or hers, he began defrosting containers of vegetable soup courtesy of Maggie and her need to send food home with them because, as she aptly put it, she sometimes forgets that she doesn’t have to cook for 15 people every damn day.

He then heated the oven, made biscuits and just before the oven timer went off, heard the slide of stocking feet across tile floor. Glancing over his shoulder, he saw her, eyes still at half-mast, hair puffed from pillow and bath the night before. Quilt trailing behind, she stood there, wrapped awkwardly, blinking, “was it a dream? I can’t tell.”

Deciding to remove the biscuits before forgetting about them, he then turned, wrapping arms around her, bulky quilt and all, “not a dream.”

Mulder gave it a second, then pulled back slightly, saw her eyes harden a little, glitter with an idea she thought he might like and he waited, remembering once again that that look was one of several million things he loved about her, “then I am having a thought.”

“Share over soup? I’m starving and you are probably two minutes from falling down from lack of food.”

“Soup, please.”

&&&&&&&&&&&

By four that afternoon, she had ordered a portable ultrasound machine, convinced the Gunmen to help her with bloodwork, made a shopping list the breadth and width of Montana and finally took a deep breath, “we can’t trust the hospital, Mulder, I won’t. I’ll do ultrasounds here and keep tracks of the baby’s growth. I will go to a new OB every few months, whose name we will never mention, by the way, and I’ll keep my own records to make sure they match up with the doc’s so I can refer to them later and trust them.”

Mulder, unsettled at her settled-in paranoia stated as fact, shifted her slightly so her elbows weren’t digging into his thighs at such a terribly painful angle and he could lean more comfortably back on the arm of the couch, “I think you have officially become more paranoid than me and that’s saying something.”

Jaw set in determination, she tucked the blankets around them tighter, the draft moving through the apartment making her colder by the minute, his warm chest against her back the only thing keeping her from piling on another layer, “I’ll take it as a compliment.” Hands cupping his knees, head twisting to look up at him, “we are this kid’s best hope and I’m not going to let this one down.”

Finally more relaxed than he’d been in a week, not wanting to start another deep discussion about unnecessary guilt, he kept his rebuke light, “you didn’t let the last ones down either but we’ve probably let Skinner down seeing as we never called off work today.”

“Ask me if I care.”

“Do you care?”

“Not in the slightest.” Handing him the remote control as a particularly strong burst of wind rattled the windows, “I only plan on moving from this couch to get the industrial size bag of Peanut M&Ms from the cupboard in about an hour.”

“I like a woman with a plan.”


End file.
